YOUNGSTERS throughout Mid Cheshire are being urged to fight against proposals to store chemical waste in Winsford Rock Salt mines.

Twenty-year-old campaigner Chris Whitaker, of Petrel Close in Winsford, thinks young people need to put their weight behind the fight to stop Minosus dumping hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic waste in the mine.

Chris feels so strongly about the issue he served as chairman of protest group RAMP - Residents Against Mine Pollution - which was formed to fight the dump plan, until he went to university.

He believes that younger generations from across Vale Royal will be the ones who suffer from the consequences of an underground chemical storage.

Minosus wants to use the cavernous space in the mine at its site under Bostock to dispose of the industrial waste.

Chris said: 'The young people of today will be the people who will be dealing with this. They will have to live with the consequences and their quality of life will be affected.

'I visited the mine and it shocked me for days afterwards the sheer beauty of the place. A place of natural beauty for future generations to see.

'We could use the space underground in a positive way, but Minosus won't get as much money in that way.

'This project can have a bad effect on existing industry.

'This is a commercial venture - they will say there is a pressing environmental need for doing it. If it wasn't a viable financial venture, though, they wouldn't be doing it.'

He added: 'If Minosus says it is cheaper to store rather than to recycle, they are going to do it, but I think it will encourage this type of thing to happen in other areas.

'The town is going forward, but if it becomes known as a place where rubbish is dumped we need to be getting positive reasons for companies to invest. I think the scale of it is under estimated.'

Chris wants people to think about the future and what the go-ahead on this plan will mean.

He said: 'Do people want their children to be living near or above this facility every second of every day?

'There is the possible contamination of land transportation of waste through a diary county, and what about the future for farming?

'There has been accidents before and there will be teething problems and, if you look at the whole logistics and how they store the waste, they are only doing random checks on the waste.

'The potential for unauthorised waste to get in is quite high, it would be easy for mistakes to happen.'

Chris thinks having a chemical store underfoot would be a deterrent to families looking to move into the area.

He said: 'I don't think it would be a positive incentive to set up here, and it would be a shame if people were forced out by a development like this.

'We don't have the advantages of hindsight, we can't see the problems - we're in unchartered territory.'

To contact Chris Whitaker for more information, e-mail him at c.m.whitaker@warwick.ac.uk.